Just out of pure curiosity, how many muggle poachers would it take to subdue a Nundu? We apparently have two examples of wizarding forces doing the deed- the stated 100 wizards, and then if we are to take it at value, Eldon Elsrickle single-handedly stunning his own on a daily basis. I find the former rather absurd in terms of volume while the latter is perhaps underwhelming, but where would the muggles fall, assuming they stumbled onto a wild Nundu?

The Quest lives again! In Gold We Trust Update #28 is live!
We Violet City now. Read and vote! ​

To get this started on a path to ruin, it just struck me that I remember a lot of fanfics where Harry hides behind Protego against a physical attacks, or fire. Many descriptions include the him straining or nearly getting burned by the heat.

Even Wand and Shield (sorry for bringing it up in this context, Roarian ) has

As a sharp flash of one of those weapons splashed across his protective spells, Harry had to quickly veer off and put out the back of the broom that'd almost burst into flame from the sheer heat, even through his Protego

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or

Harry winced at the impact that the Bruce-creature had made on his Shield Charm.

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As is, the trend, even among DLP folk is to have the shield spells become something of an extension of the caster, where impacts and damage threatening him are at least felt through some connection.

Yet... I don't remember any case in canon Harry potter where a shield charm was used to protect against anything other than spells. And even then, I'm not sure there was any "impact" on the caster after the spells hit.

My question for others is this - was there ever a case in canon, where a shield charm was used against a non-magical object, or where an impact of a spell does something to the shield's caster?

Just my two coins, after seeing this new master-thread and noting the shield charm vs nuke thread getting closed.

You could consider Harry's Shield Charm knocking Snape flat on his arse, and Hermione's use of the spell in DH to stop Harry and Ron from killing each other. It acted like a physical barrier in both instances. That Cockleford lady in Wonderbook also used it in the same fashion, so I'd say that non-magical objects are fair game.

Okay, first I'm going to tackle the "backwards wizarding Britain" nonsense, then I'm going to go through the fic bit by bit*.

*The first issue ended up taking so long that I'm not going to tackle the second after all. Maybe later. Suffice it to say that "Moldyshorts" wasn't funny the first time someone used it, and it's even worse now. The biggest problem with the fic really is the America/Muggle wank (in this fic, America and Muggles being largely equated) that it is, which the rest of this post indirectly addresses.

There are two ways you can take the claim that wizarding Britain is backwards. The first is in comparison to other wizarding nations. The second is in comparison to Muggles.

The first is very quickly dealt with, as we know so little about international wizarding politics. We do know a couple of things, though:

1. No other nation has interfered with British internal affairs for a while. While it could be that they're just not interested, that would be unusual. Wizards are still human. They still desire power, and if there's one constant in the universe it's that a nation-state will poke its nose where-ever it can. States are always looking to expand their influence and power. With that in mind, Britain must at some level be sufficiently powerful to deter direct interference from other nations.

2. British wizards have occupied positions of prestige and power in international organisations.

Other than that, things are pretty much down to the individual author. And I can't see any good reason to make Britain particularly less developed than other wizarding nations, as it would just remove conflict. More developed = more powerful, and if other wizarding nations are much more powerful than Britain then the problems of Britain (e.g. Voldemort) become trivial, given that there exist people who could easily eliminate the problem if they so wished. Trivialising your story's central conflict is a suicidal move, as an author.

There's a lot more to say on the second topic. Is wizarding Britain backwards compared to Muggles? Let's have a look at a few different areas.

Understanding of the universe.

Wizards know about magic; Muggles do not. That automatically means that Muggles are at a massive disadvantage in their understanding of the universe: whatever they discover about the universe will be missing this massively important force which invalidates many of the things they believe to be true (e.g. matter/energy can be created and destroyed, conservation of momentum isn't true, the soul exists, abstract concepts have real existence and can be interacted with).

But what about those areas that Muggles specialise in, like cosmology? Muggles have the Hubble telescope. That's pretty advanced. What about wizards? Well, they have a real time model of the entire Milky Way galaxy that can fit on a table top and can be bought on the high street. Sweet.

Winner: wizards

Medicine

Wizards can reattach severed limbs, replace blood without limit, regrow organs and bones, and cure the common cold with a single potion (Pepper-Up potion in canon is the cure for the cold, not an energy boost). They can cure almost any poison, and seem to be mostly immune to Muggle diseases in the first place, unless under stress like performing exams.

Muggles have antibiotics, anti-virals, and can perform very precise surgery with modern robotics, but still can't replicate the kinds of things wizards can. Laser eye surgery can correct certain kinds of vision problems.

It's not clear what understanding of biology wizards have, or if there are magical elements of the human body which Muggle doctors are completely in the dark about (like the soul). Either way, in terms of actual medical capabilities...

Winner: wizards.

Transport

Wizards can teleport personally, or use Portkeys, or Floo. Or fly. They can also render themselves immune to temperature extremes, to a lack of breathable atmosphere and to other harmful environments.

Muggles can fly, drive cars, use trains, or ships.

Winner: wizards.

Communication

Wizards can write letters that find their exact recipient, or communicate in real time with audio and video.

Muggles in 1991 can write letters which find their recipient's place of abode, or communicate in real time with audio. In modern times Muggles can communicate in real time with audio and video.

1991 winner: wizards.
2013 winner: draw.

Information manipulation

Muggles have computers which can store vast amounts of information in small spaces, and which can perform complex operations upon that information, including searches and duplication.

Wizards are limited to traditional libraries and books. They have some powerful unique abilities to manipulate information, especially the ability to hide it from discovery, but in day to day life this has little utility.

Winner: Muggles.

Basic welfare

Muggles (in Britain) have access to free health care and a welfare safety net. Nonetheless, poverty and homelessless exists. Free education up to age 18 is guaranteed for all Muggles, though it is of varying quality.

Wizards (in Britain) apparently have access to free health care, and even the poorest wizards are able to live in houses of a size comparable to Muggle mansions (the Weasley's home, however ramshackle, sits on a large plot of land and has at least five bedrooms). Although they have to make do in some areas like buying second hand books and clothing, the poorest wizards never seem to struggle for life basics like food and shelter. All wizards are guaranteed education until 18 at Hogwarts, which is of comparable quality to the best schools in Europe.

Winner: wizards

Progressive social issues

Muggles have problems of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and classism.

Wizards have problems with racism (of a different sort) and classism, though inequality in wizarding Britain is not as extreme as Muggle Britain (the children of the social elite and the children of the poor attend the same school). Wizards have had female leaders for hundreds of years and there is no evidence of any kind of institutionalised sexism. Wizards are less concerned with sexual innocence than Muggles, with both sexes sharing a changing room in the Quidditch stadium at Hogwarts.

Winner: wizards.

Security

For Muggles, terrorism is a problem but not common. At any given time Britain is probably involved in military action somewhere in the world.

Wizarding terrorism has been a big problem in recent history. No evidence of military action abroad.

Winner: Muggles.

Freedom

Muggle citizens generally enjoy certain freedoms and rights, but these are not guaranteed: a monarch is still the nominal ruler of the nation, and there are no limitations upon the power of Parliament to make laws. Anti-terrorism laws exist which allow the government draconian powers.

The media is mostly controlled by private interests, extremely biased, and of a generally poor quality when it comes to successfully informing the populace.

Wizarding citizens enjoy certain freedoms and rights, but these are not guaranteed.

The media is mostly controlled by public interests, extremely biased, and of a generally poor quality when it comes to successfully informing the populace. The government has been able to use draconian powers in the name of fighting terrorism.

Winner: draw.

Entertainment

Wizards have a small number of fiction authors. No movies or TV. Some radio. Some music. Some pretty awesome sports.

Muggles have all those things in abundance, and the internet.

Winner: Muggles.

Military power

Oh boy. A lot has been said about this before. I'll try to just summarise.

Muggles can make very large explosions. They have access to significant manpower, and can strike at locations remotely (if they can target it). On a man to man level, they can shoot people and make moderately large explosions. They can torture people for information and monitor enemies electronic signals. If they know where the enemy is, they can point a satellite to look at the location.

Wizards can teleport into any location, control the minds of their enemies, read the minds of captured enemies. They can render any location impossible to be thought of, located on a map, seen visibly.

These spells are not trivial: you can't get around an inability to map Hogwarts by mapping Hogsmeade and saying Hogwarts is next to it. Even if you know that Hogwarts is next to Hogsmeade, when confronted with a map you will not be able to make the deduction that Hogwarts is there, nor will you be able to place Hogwarts in the correct place on the map even if you are able to make that deduction.

They can cast protective spells which repel attempted incursions and serve as a protective barrier against general harm (e.g. heat, shrapnel, crushing force, kinetic force).

On a man to man level, wizards can cast shields*, perform a wide variety of offensive spells (both visible and invisible), can manipulate the environment, make moderately large explosions.

Wizards also share the same cities as Muggles, so carpet bombing isn't an option, even if the bombs were capable of breaking through wizarding protections.

Wizards are effectively like a sci-fi civilisation in their capabilities. I believe their complete ability to master Muggles is demonstrated in the first chapter on HBP, which it is shown that the British Ministry is able to casually "rearrange" a President from another nation (strongly implied USA) calling the British Muggle Prime Minister. Wizarding penetration of Muggle government is high - it would be difficult for Muggles to even get a war off the ground without forgetting that they wanted to.

*The effectiveness of a shield is not clear. Personally I feel that a properly cast shield (of the sort Harry can cast by HBP, but not of the kind he can cast in GoF) would be enough to repel any number of bullets or any amount of physical energy (heat, force, etc.), the only thing being able to break it being magic which is more powerful.

Winner: wizards

Fashion

Muggles have a massive variety of clothing, and clothing can range from the very cheap to the very expensive.

Wizards have a limited variety of clothing, and it appears to be more expensive than in the Muggle world (clothing being one of the items poor families struggle with).

Winner: Muggles

So, out of 12 categories, in the Harry Potter era:

Wizard win: 7
Draw: 1
Muggle win: 4

Additionally, the Muggle wins are often in more trivial categories like entertainment and fashion. Their only real significant win is in information manipulation.

Even if you don't buy that wizards are more advanced than Muggles, hopefully this is enough to convince you that wizards are not "backwards".

When wizards fight smart: wizards win. I suspect the types of wizards that might decide to fight muggles think themselves far too above muggles to fight smart (at least initially), but if they did they have a whole bag of tricks that would make fighting them very difficult. However, Deatheaters (and the OotP as well) don't seem to use everything available to them to fight their magical enemies in the books. Something to debate I guess.

Espionage: wizards win. There may be some avenue to countering things like invisibility cloaks (sound detectors, thermal imaging, etc) and the imperius curse (careful observation of colleagues and looking for abnormalities), and wizards may overlook muggle methods of espionage, but this is too far in the wizard's court for them to do anything meaningful.

Defence: Wizards win big time. Muggles have nothing that can stop apparition and portkeys, and may have a very limited ability to prevent invisibility cloaks and the disillusionment charm, meanwhile muggles have no ability to break the (probably) many varied and horrible magical defences wizards can erect over a location (call them wards or charms, I don't really care in this context). I like to think muggle-reppelling charms can be "pushed through" if the muggle is aware of them (how else do muggle parents take their children to magical locations like Diagon Alley?) but it will always be there as a distraction at the back of their minds.

Interrogation: Both do well, but wizards win. Muggles are quite capable of making a person spill every secret they have, but it takes time and care. Wizards can do it with a few drops of a potion or with the imperius curse.

Heavy weaponry: Possibly muggles, or a stalemate. Depending on whether you think a shield charm (and its building protecting equivalent) can stop all non-magical attacks, or if you think it depends on the ability of the caster to stop an attack (magical or muggle), bombing and strafing from aircraft, artillery etc may or may not be rendered useless by magic. Wizards don't appear to have any equivalent weaponry though maybe they can conjurer meteors or spew fiendfire from a broom.

Coercion: wizards win. Wizards are not dependent on the muggle world in any significant way so they can't be embargoed or threatened, wizards however can place the imperius curse on high-ranking muggles. The only defence would be removing them once discovered.

All in all, wizards are heavily favoured in a muggles vs wizards. However, it's unlikely that every wizard would support whatever crackpot Ministry that started such a war. Even a small number of wizards defecting has the potential to seriously upset this balance as only a small number of wizards are needed to provide counters to some of the wizard's most powerful tools and weapons.

Just out of pure curiosity, how many muggle poachers would it take to subdue a Nundu? We apparently have two examples of wizarding forces doing the deed- the stated 100 wizards, and then if we are to take it at value, Eldon Elsrickle single-handedly stunning his own on a daily basis. I find the former rather absurd in terms of volume while the latter is perhaps underwhelming, but where would the muggles fall, assuming they stumbled onto a wild Nundu?

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I never understood that. They got Avada Kedavra, an unblockable Instagib spell, so if they wanna kill something or someone, they can do just that. The real problem would be to catch a dangerous beast.

I never understood that. They got Avada Kedavra, an unblockable Instagib spell, so if they wanna kill something or someone, they can do just that. The real problem would be to catch a dangerous beast.

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Yeah I think you got it. The key word here is subdue. Capture the beast without killing it.

I imagine any muggles stumbling upon the beast would either meet the same fate as stumbling upon any other wild predator, magical or otherwise, with an increased likelihood of death given the breath/size of the nundu.

-​

Becoming a writer is a polite way of saying you've chosen alcoholism as a career.

Yeah I think you got it. The key word here is subdue. Capture the beast without killing it.

I imagine any muggles stumbling upon the beast would either meet the same fate as stumbling upon any other wild predator, magical or otherwise, with an increased likelihood of death given the breath/size of the nundu.

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Is there any canon evidence for the killing curse being capable of killing all possible living things? As far as I know, the only thing it's said to be guaranteed to kill is people. When fake-Moody gives his lesson on the unforgivables, he says that the only person to survive a killing curse is sitting in the room with him, but says nothing about the effectiveness of the killing curse on things like dragons and nundus.

As for wizards vs muggles, wizards might win an overall war, but a muggle could definitely win the average wizard 1v1 if the muggle has a gun. I mean, quite a few wizards (purebloods especially) don't even seem to know what a gun is, so chances are they'd be full of bullet holes before they even thought of defending themselves. Naturally this only works as long as it remains a surprise.

Is there any canon evidence for the killing curse being capable of killing all possible living things? As far as I know, the only thing it's said to be guaranteed to kill is people. When fake-Moody gives his lesson on the unforgivables, he says that the only person to survive a killing curse is sitting in the room with him, but says nothing about the effectiveness of the killing curse on things like dragons and nundus.

As for wizards vs muggles, wizards might win an overall war, but a muggle could definitely win the average wizard 1v1 if the muggle has a gun. I mean, quite a few wizards (purebloods especially) don't even seem to know what a gun is, so chances are they'd be full of bullet holes before they even thought of defending themselves. Naturally this only works as long as it remains a surprise.

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As far as the killing curse goes, the wiki gives a fairly good answer: "When cast successfully on a living person or creature, the curse causes instantaneous death." We see Crouch Jr cast the curse on a spider in book 4, and it is cast several times on acromantulas in book 7. There's no reason to believe it wouldn't work on a dragon or nundu, even if this makes the 100 person figure seem a tad strange.

With regards to wizards and guns, you have to remember wand vs gun is an imperfect analogy. Every wizard has a wand; not every muggle has a gun. Give the wizard some basic defensive tools, like the shield-charmed robes Fred and George sold the ministry, and they're basically invincible against firelegs.

As far as the killing curse goes, the wiki gives a fairly good answer: "When cast successfully on a living person or creature, the curse causes instantaneous death." We see Crouch Jr cast the curse on a spider in book 4, and it is cast several times on acromantulas in book 7. There's no reason to believe it wouldn't work on a dragon or nundu, even if this makes the 100 person figure seem a tad strange.

With regards to wizards and guns, you have to remember wand vs gun is an imperfect analogy. Every wizard has a wand; not every muggle has a gun. Give the wizard some basic defensive tools, like the shield-charmed robes Fred and George sold the ministry, and they're basically invincible against firelegs.

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I've seen enough inaccuracies in the wiki to simply start ignoring it on any even slightly controversial issue. In any case, nowhere in canon is it said that the killing curse kills all living things.

There are things that suggest it doesn't do so (nothing concrete, because we just don't know how the killing curse works). First is what you mention - 100 people required to take down a nundu. Surely, if a single killing curse could do the trick, 100 wouldn't be necessary. Of course it could be that it means subduing it without killing it, though.

Then there are giants. Giants participate in the battle of Hogwarts. Apparently Voldemort had several giants, but the Hogwarts defenders only had Hagrid's half brother. Surely, then, Grawp would have been a prime target for killing curses, seeing how he was the only real defense against Voldemort's giants. He would be easy to hit, too, since giants are.. well.. giant.

Then there's Hagrid himself. A blond death eater that fires curses (according to Ginny, including killing curses) all over the place in the Astronomy tower battle also curses Hagrid several times on the Hogwarts grounds, but Hagrid is apparently uninjured due to his giant blood. In the same battle, a death eater named Gibbon is killed by a stray killing curse - possibly or probably one of the blond death eater's curses, since he was mentioned to be causing a lot of damage with deflected curses. Seems reasonable that he would have attempted the killing curse on Hagrid, too. Also, the same partially applies to Hagrid regarding size: he would be easy to hit and even easier considering that he seemed to get physically close to his targets (physically throwing a death eater across the Great Hall for instance)

Not necessarily suggesting Hagrid is immune to killing curses, but just pointing out that 1) nobody in canon actually says the killing curse works on everything and 2) there's circumstantial evidence to suggest it doesn't.

I've seen enough inaccuracies in the wiki to simply start ignoring it on any even slightly controversial issue. In any case, nowhere in canon is it said that the killing curse kills all living things.

There are things that suggest it doesn't do so (nothing concrete, because we just don't know how the killing curse works). First is what you mention - 100 people required to take down a nundu. Surely, if a single killing curse could do the trick, 100 wouldn't be necessary. Of course it could be that it means subduing it without killing it, though.

Then there are giants. Giants participate in the battle of Hogwarts. Apparently Voldemort had several giants, but the Hogwarts defenders only had Hagrid's half brother. Surely, then, Grawp would have been a prime target for killing curses, seeing how he was the only real defense against Voldemort's giants. He would be easy to hit, too, since giants are.. well.. giant.

Then there's Hagrid himself. A blond death eater that fires curses (according to Ginny, including killing curses) all over the place in the Astronomy tower battle also curses Hagrid several times on the Hogwarts grounds, but Hagrid is apparently uninjured due to his giant blood. In the same battle, a death eater named Gibbon is killed by a stray killing curse - possibly or probably one of the blond death eater's curses, since he was mentioned to be causing a lot of damage with deflected curses. Seems reasonable that he would have attempted the killing curse on Hagrid, too. Also, the same partially applies to Hagrid regarding size: he would be easy to hit and even easier considering that he seemed to get physically close to his targets (physically throwing a death eater across the Great Hall for instance)

Not necessarily suggesting Hagrid is immune to killing curses, but just pointing out that 1) nobody in canon actually says the killing curse works on everything and 2) there's circumstantial evidence to suggest it doesn't.

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Or the Killing Curse is one of the many things, that could've been awesomely gamebreaking and Rowling just decided not to use to not to break the game a.k.a. another plot hole.

Or the Killing Curse is one of the many things, that could've been awesomely gamebreaking and Rowling just decided not to use to not to break the game a.k.a. another plot hole.

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As long as there's a logical explanation for it, I wouldn't call it a plot hole. The Killing Curse not working on certain magical creatures - such as Basilisks, Nundus, and Dragons - seems perfectly plausible. After all, if the killing curse can easily deal with all these creatures, why would wizards treat them with such caution?

Additionally, we do see one magical creature survive the killing curse - Fawkes, in OTP. Admittedly, it does technically kill him, before he revives, but this shows that there are methods for magical creatures to escape death by killing curse. Also, while it's never explicitly stated, it's implied that Dementors can't die, and therefore can't be killed.

I'm honestly curious whether the Wizarding World could even be exposed enough to warrant a Wizarding/Muggle War from happening. Even assuming Deaths Eaters create a huge attack on the muggles, I would think the Wizarding World would make sure to remove any traces of the true source of the attack (they would doubtlessly manipulate muggle memories to make it seem like a Terrorist attack).

The only way I could see them being exposed is if Magic was leaked somehow into the Internet (such as in the fic Hogwarts Exposed, where the existence of the Wizarding World was leaked into the internet after a series of convoluted events). And even that is assuming that the Wizarding World can't find a way to prevent that information from leaking as well.

The whole concept of a war between Wizards and Muggles is, frankly, ridiculous.

Perhaps it's because the trope is so completely pervasive in fanfiction, spurred on by the 'Battle of Hogwarts', but why on earth do people think that Wizards would fight any kind of conventional war?

We're talking about a group with no need for lines of supply, with the ability to travel instantaneously and with absolute stealth to literally any Muggle location. Every wizard has the ability to do so much more than merely kill people, they can impersonate any man or woman, they can create golems, they can take control of any man or woman with so much ease that even a child can perform the spell.

They can interrogate someone with near-absolute reliability, then they can force that person to forget the interrogation completely. The ability to kill in interesting and flashy ways is utterly irrelevant to the larger scale question.

Muggles can't even perceive the major Wizarding centres of commerce in the middle of their own largest and most heavily watched cities. Hundreds of children pass through one of the busiest Muggle transport hubs in the world and all Muggles can notice is the occasional person in funny clothes.

If Wizards chose to end Muggles the Muggles wouldn't even know that they had, they would believe that it was a spate of terrorist attacks and world-wide wars.

Muggles don't even have the ability to make that choice. And even if they did, there is nothing they could do on the larger scale.

It's not a case of Muggles getting into a ground war with wizards. It's not even reasonable to think that they'd fight a guerilla war. 'War' presupposes that there are two sides. In a 'war' against wizards there is no leader who is not actually under their control, there are no armies attacking the right places.

A 'war' with wizards would be a bloodbath as Muggle fights Muggle at the behest of a few Wizards while everyone else goes about their daily lives.

Nukes? Who cares when the people in charge of pressing the buttons are all under Imperius, and when they don't even know where to fire them anyway?

It would be like the Witch Trials all over again, where the only people who actually burn are Muggles. There is no winning this war, there isn't even any real way to fight it.

I'm honestly curious whether the Wizarding World could even be exposed enough to warrant a Wizarding/Muggle War from happening. Even assuming Deaths Eaters create a huge attack on the muggles, I would think the Wizarding World would make sure to remove any traces of the true source of the attack (they would doubtlessly manipulate muggle memories to make it seem like a Terrorist attack).

The only way I could see them being exposed is if Magic was leaked somehow into the Internet (such as in the fic Hogwarts Exposed, where the existence of the Wizarding World was leaked into the internet after a series of convoluted events). And even that is assuming that the Wizarding World can't find a way to prevent that information from leaking as well.

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The state of technology is mostly irrelevant. Wizards are already understaffed in this department, not to mention hilariously inept at the internet and fellytones, so it doesn't seem like they should be able to prevent information spread right now. Most likely, wizard governments are using their partnerships with muggle governments to outsource the problem, letting the muggles take down videos of giants and find disillusioned muggles instead. Thus, the question isn't "Will technology spread the information faster than magic can suppress it?" It's: "Will technology spread the information faster than technology can suppress it?"

On another level, one could ask the question: "Will governments afford their citizens enough privacy, and refrain from monitoring them enough, that the citizens could reasonably tell a sizeable fraction of the muggle population before being caught?" And, well, I don't know how confident I am about that one.